Pediatric Critical Care Unit or PICU is a specialized unit in the hospital that monitors the children with various health ailments with specialized levels of medical care. It is quite different from the other departments in the hospital as PICU involves constant monitoring of aspects like heart rate, breathing, and blood pressure of the child or a baby.
PICU is a specialized hospital ward where severely sick children from one month of life up till 18 years are admitted.
They have properly trained health care personnel and employ cutting-edge monitoring technology.
PICU is a specialized medical care unit that involves constant monitoring by the staff and nurses. At Sri Ramakrishna Hospital, the doctors offer advanced ventilation, central venous access, placement of an arterial line, dialysis, advanced monitoring of the brain and heart.
Children are often at increased risk of developing respiratory distress due to various infections. At times it can lead to admission to PICU for respiratory support.
The signs that help in identifying severe respiratory distress can include tachypnea, decreased activity, changes in skin colour to pale blue, and many more.
It is a term used to denote any pressure increase in the child’s cranial vault. It can be secondary to brain infection, post head injury, continuous seizures, stroke, bleed, in the brain or brain tumour.
The signs that the condition may indicate include, acute headache, double vision, vomiting, altered consciousness, seizures.
Severe respiratory illness requires respiratory support as they become tired due to increased work of breathing and decreased oxygen levels. Humidified high flow nasal cannulae helps in decreasing the child’s discomfort and treat low oxygen levels where a nasal cannulae is kept in the babies nostril and high flow is provided by a machine.
It is a highly advanced mode of respiratory support, used in children who do not get better with humidified high flow nasal cannulae or non-invasive ventilation.
This procedure is where a mask is placed on the baby’s face covering the nose and mouth to provide respiratory support.
The children are given anaesthesia and put on a mechanical ventilator, this measures to decrease the pressure like avoiding stimuli.
In certain children craniectomy may be required. In craniectomy, a part of the skull bone is removed surgically, to decrease the pressure from the skull and later placed back.
Getting a peripheral cannula in extremely small children can be very difficult. At times, to treat very sick children a cannula is placed in one of the large veins in the body to ensure better delivery of medications.
Children who do not get a peripheral line and are sick.
Children whose blood pressure is low.
Children admitted in the PICU for a long time.
Undergoing long surgeries.
Children who are not getting enough nutrition.
Who are undergoing chemotherapy or transplant.
Admission into a PICU can be inconvenient, uncomfortable for children. But based on the severity of the illness, the children may need a shorter or longer stay in the PICU. PICU ensures overall wellbeing of the child.
Most of the children usually recover well and go back to lead happy lives. We at Sri Ramakrishna Hospital also provide psychosocial therapy to help them return back to their normal lives quickly without much disabilities.
Children will be discharged from the PICU once they have recovered to the point they no longer require close monitoring or treatment that can only be given in the PICU.
The name NICU, stands for “Neonatal Intensive Care Unit”. This is a part of a hospital that only treats newborns or babies of a certain age. PICU stands for “Pediatric Intensive Care Unit” which is where kids go when they need the best care possible.
PICU is designed to handle different conditions like autoimmune disorders, severe infection, respiratory distress, poisoning, medication overdose, trauma and burns complex surgery, and congenital abnormalities.
Happy Children
Years of Service
Experienced Staff
Our team of highly experienced Specialists have over 20+ years of experience in providing the best pediatric critical care in Coimbatore.
MD (Pediatrics), IDPCCM (Pediatric Critical Care)., Consultant Paediatric Intensive care (PICU)
“My daughter was admitted at PICU, Sri Ramakrishna Hospital for respiratory issues. Though we were very worried as it was quite a stressful situation. But doctors and staff were highly supportive during her treatment. The treatment options were also wide and we had a very smooth experience.”
“We are highly grateful for the PICU staff at Sri Ramakrishna Hospital, they took the best care of our son and also we were able to be by his side throughout the treatment. We totally recommend this hospital to give your baby the best care.”
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